


Fragments of the Heart and Mind

by Fauxrest



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Character Study, Future Foundation (Dangan Ronpa), Gen, I don't know how tagging works., M/M, Neo World Program - sort of?, Post-Canon, Post-Game, the relationship can be read as platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 05:09:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15065837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fauxrest/pseuds/Fauxrest
Summary: [Spoilers for Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony!]Miu’s “Neo World Program” backups were retrieved a few months after the end of the final killing game. Shuichi only hoped they had made the right choice when they agreed to run three of these programs. [Post-game; set in a world where Tsumugi was lying about the tragedy being fictional, but not about the students’ talents being forged.]





	Fragments of the Heart and Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SaiOuma Week 2018, Day 4: Hope.
> 
> I would have liked to write a lot more before publishing this, but I wanted to at least get *something* out before midnight hits. (I already missed so much of this week, ahhh!)
> 
> With that said, I may revisit this to flesh it out and expand it into a real story at some point.
> 
> This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction. I hope there aren't any egregious errors, and that you can get at least a little enjoyment out of reading this. 
> 
> (Feedback is my lifeblood—positive or negative.)

“We recovered the backups of each consciousness downloaded to the ‘Neo World Program’ you entered. Would you like to converse with your friends again?”

The words were hard to process. Strangely enough, Himiko was the first to respond. “Wait… does that mean we can talk to them again? Can we see everyone?” she asked, her voice filled with urgency and worry. Shuichi wondered if she remembered that those students didn’t include Tenko or Angie before she seemed to deflate and he got his answer. Even so, her gaze stayed determined and present in a way that, coming from her, said a lot about what she was thinking now. Shuichi occupied himself with observing the reactions of Maki and the Future Foundation representative who brought this strange revelation, because Shuichi himself wasn’t prepared to think about the question just yet.

Maki, however, didn’t offer much in the way of emotion. The only indication that she had heard was a barely noticeable hitch in her breath and the way her posture remained slightly more frozen than usual. Shuichi was sure if he hadn’t been paying attention, or hadn’t known her as well as he did, he wouldn’t have picked up on either of those things.  
The news-bearer cleared her throat and continued, “we need a computer to house each AI, and we don’t have enough resources to spare any more than the three designated to you, at the moment, but no one will complain if you use them to run the programs.

“Obviously, these aren’t exactly the people you knew. The closest would be Miu, since she died in the program, but…” she looked to the side. There was no need to complete the thought. It was probably uncomfortable, explaining all this to the three survivors of the third killing game.

Even if the program were a perfect representation of the people they remembered, what would that mean? How did any of it work? The Neo World Program had “downloaded” their personalities and memories, so the memories Shuichi had of directing his actions in that program were really of his AI; that would be his only reference for what it meant to talk to their “classmates” through this. The Future Foundation really was amazing—too bad they weren’t amazing enough to keep the killing games from happening in the first place.

…Even if these were the people he remembered, they’d still be fictional. The representative stared at him and he realized he had smiled at that, for some reason.

He looked at Maki and Himiko again, but he only found their eyes directed back at him. It felt as if each were silently willing the others to answer for them. Shuichi was doing the same, he realized.

"…I want to talk to Kaito,” Maki finally said. Her voice was perfectly monotone, and her expression strained. She did that when she was nervous, Shuichi had learned.

Himiko shivered. “Nyeh… then… we only get to pick three?”

The woman had already gone to set up Maki’s computer with a flash drive—seriously, a flash drive?—but she paused to look back at Himiko before answering, “theoretically, we can delete one to make room for another, but that might not be considered ethical. When we have more resources to spare, that might change, but I don’t know how long that will be. If K1-B0 can be rebuilt, we will insert his AI into the bot. As for the others, it’s more complicated, but for now this will have to do.”

“Gonta, then,” Himiko decided with conviction. That made sense. Shuichi put a hand to his chin.

It took him another moment, but he finally managed to come to a conclusion. Hesitantly, he met the older woman’s impatient gaze and responded, “I… I think I would like to speak to Kokichi.”

He expected more of a response from Maki than he got; she looked as if she were about to retort, but in the end, she clamped her mouth shut without saying anything. The woman didn’t acknowledge them, but she finished setting up all three computers and said, “the programs will start running on their own when the downloads end. I’m not the one who knows about any of this, but they should already know their situation, so I don’t think I’m needed anymore. Bye.” She seemed in a hurry to leave by the time she finished speaking.

 

 

One-by-one, each desktop was replaced by an empty green screen, and then three perfectly realistic faces of their three chosen classmates. Shuichi felt grateful that the people didn’t appear as floating heads, or worse, Miu’s Neo World Program avatars. Then a wave of emotion hit with more intensity at seeing the three faces shift to three different expressions from their classmates. Both Kokichi and Kaito instantly looked disgruntled when they popped up on the screens.

The whole situation was too eerie to process. Shuichi started to wonder if he should have agreed to this idea at all before the silence was broken by Kaito—or more accurately, by the computer running Kaito’s AI.  
“Hey, Maki Roll, Shuichi! And… Himiko?” He started to look less annoyed and more confused as he spoke. It was a very “Kaito” reaction, Shuichi thought.

Maki ignored him at first, opting instead to turn back to Shuichi and Himiko and say, “we should split up for now. This will get tiring fast if everyone’s in the same room.” At Shuichi’s confused stare, she added, “we can all talk to them later, right? There’s no time limit,” and walked briskly to her computer, carefully picking it up and walking out of the room. Himiko shrugged and hesitantly did the same, leaving Shuichi alone with Kokichi’s AI running on his computer. Kokichi had gone silent during the exchange, and his expression had defaulted into the blank stare he sometimes gave while he was alive. Shuichi marveled at the realism of the simulation—although perhaps “surrealism” would have been a better word for what he felt.

 

 

“…Well?” Kokichi quipped, “were you going to ask something, or did you just want to stare at me forever? I’m a busy person, you know! Even now. I have better things to do than watch you watch me.”

That was a lie, Shuichi thought remorsefully, but he wasn’t about to say so. He lifted his arms in a placating gesture. “…Right, well,” he began, “I wanted to apologize for something, but… you wouldn’t remember what I wanted to apologize for the most. I’m sorry for never seeing through your lies. I’m sorry for never understanding you. I’m sorry for… ah…” Kokichi had shifted into an annoyed expression and looked as if he were about to interrupt, had Shuichi not paused when he trailed off.

“This is sooooo boring! I don’t want to hear your apologies. Do you think anything will change just by you saying ‘sorry’ over and over again? Unless you want to get on your knees and split your stomach for me. That would be less boring,” Kokichi mocked. Right. Apologies wouldn’t help anything, would they? Shuichi tried a different tactic.

“If it’s alright with you,” he began, “I’d like to… talk.” He paused, still unsure where to begin. “I never managed to figure you out, and… I said some awful things to you before you died. I’ll never be able to undo that, but I’d like to at least… try to understand.” The “detective” stood frozen in place after that, waiting awkwardly for Kokichi to react.

“Awww, is Shuichi so scared that he can’t even come sit down to talk to me? Don’t worry, I can’t do anything to you. I’m not even technically Kokichi!” he laughed, but Shuichi frowned at that as he walked forward and took a seat at the computer. “Of course, I could be lying about not being able to do anything! You shouldn’t let your guard down like that, Shuichi.”

“Sorry, Kokichi. It’s just hard to adjust to seeing you like this.”

“Oh.” Kokichi’s face went blank again.

Then, “I just read through the files on the rest of the killing game we were in. Man, it sure is cool to be an AI. Maybe now I really can take over the world! …I see why you wanted to apologize to me, though.”

Shuichi was starting to remember just how taxing it was to interact with Kokichi. He couldn’t say whether the comment about being an AI was a lie or not. Maybe Kokichi didn’t know yet, either… but Kokichi wasn’t doing much to perpetuate the conversation. Did he want to be left alone? Or was he waiting for Shuichi to ask something else? Normally, it would have been easy to start asking probing questions, to try and find out more about Kokichi, but that was before everything that Kokichi had just learned about.

“That was a lie. I can’t access any of that. And even if I could, it wouldn’t be the same as living it.” Shuichi felt a wave of relief—which was immediately followed by guilt for reacting the way he did. Maybe—just maybe—he could make himself interact with Kokichi the way he did back in school, just for a while. Despite that, he couldn’t think of how to start. “Um,” he began, “I, uh…”

“Ugh! You’re the one that wanted to talk with me, so talk! Don’t make me keep trying to start the conversation up”—Kokichi had been trying to do that?—“when all you do is sit there looking awkward! Tell me about the outside world, or something.” Wait, didn’t that woman say Kokichi would already have the information on ’his situation’? Did that not include the state of the world?

Shuichi sighed. “You’ll… have to tell me what you already know, first.”

It turned out that was the catalyst that finally broke the ice between them. Kokichi couldn’t have been all that interested in learning about the outside world, though; over and over he would find ways to derail the conversation, leading Shuichi in circles about what he knew or didn’t know. Eventually, somehow, Shuichi had managed to explain a substantial amount of what he had learned since leaving the killing game. He still didn’t know if Kokichi had needed any of it explained to him in the first place when the false leader abruptly ended that topic by simply saying, “O-kay! That’s enough—you can stop now, Shuichi.”

After that, the two somehow managed to fall into an almost normal repartee—which mostly consisted of Kokichi making grandiose statements about things and Shuichi alternating between calling him out on his lies and playing along with them. Shuichi tried to weasel out any information he could on the boy’s motivations and what his current state was like—whether it was okay, or what to do about it if it wasn’t—but with little success.

 

 

“I think I have to go now. Sorry… I’ll be back soon.”

“Hey, hey, hey! That’s rude. When’s ‘soon’? You’re not just going to leave me hanging like that, right? I didn’t know you were that kind of guy… I’m so disappointed…” Kokichi whined, tears suddenly forming on his eyes. It took Shuichi a moment of panic to realize that Kokichi was pulling his leg. Still…

“Wait, please don’t cry! I have to work on a job now. I’ll hang out with you, or… is this okay?” Shuichi asked nervously, gesturing to the computer.

“What, are you asking if I want to keep existing?” Shuichi’s expression darkened at hearing the question aloud, but he nodded. Kokichi rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I want to stay here. I mean, it’s not exactly home sweet home, but it’ll do. I’ll just have to figure out what to do with myself…”

“…Until we can give you a body? Recreate the Virtual World? Or…”

“Who can say?

“But until then, you *have* to keep talking to me. It’s inconvenient being trapped in here, y’know.”

Shuichi smiled.

They had skirted around the elephant in the room for what must have been hours, and he knew he would never be content until he addressed it, but for now, he could speak to the other boy casually. So far, Kokichi didn’t seem to mind.

Maybe he even wanted the company, but Shuichi could never be sure when it came to Kokichi. Perhaps that was why it seemed so important to talk to him again.


End file.
